INDEPENDENCE PARTY
of New York State

The Meaning of Liberty "We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just power from
the consent of the governed."
--Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of citizens of the United State; nor shall
any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; not deny to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the law."
--14th Amendment, Constitution of the United States

Political Liberty: "The state of condition of those who have the
right effectually to share in framing and conducting their
government."
"The right to participate in determining the form, choosing the
officials, making the laws, and carrying on the function's of one's
government."
--Webster's Dictionary

Members of Congress and the state legislatures, through wanton
abuse of their authority and power, "effectually" deny citizens their
right "to choose" their own representative in 90 percent and more of
legislative districts in the United States, where incumbents are
virtually unchallenged.

Have they not violated the Constitution, Both the meaning and intent,
by abrogating the "privileges and immunities" of the citizens of the
United States?

Have they not deprived us of our political "liberty" as effectively
as any dictator, king or tyrant could accomplish?

Does it matter that the incumbents have insured their own electoral
invulnerability through guile, duplicity and manipulation, rather
than force?

The Platform of the Independence Party of New York

The Preamble

The historic core of our democratic
system is Political Liberty; which is the right and opportunity
to choose those who will serve as representatives with the consent of
the governed. This "right to choose" is the single factor that
controls the ambitions of those who would impose - through force or
stealth - their will on the majority of citizens. When democracy
operates as intended, an aroused public can replace those who govern
outside of the boundaries established by public consent.

Today, however, the condition of our democracy is tragically flawed.
The incumbents of both political parties have manipulated every
resource at their disposal to all but eliminate electoral choice in
the United States; and they have, in the process, converted the state
and federal budgets into a gigantic payoff system for the interests
and organizations that contribute to their campaigns. The result is a
frustrated and angry public; a public that has no place to express
this anger because the electoral system is rigged to guarantee the
re-election of the incumbents in office.

The incumbents of both parties have collaborated to subvert our
political liberty to serve their own ambition for pensions,
privileges and perks. In the process of paying off those who
contribute massively to their campaigns, they have erected a mountain
of public debt which will eventually crash down upon the lives of our
children and grandchildren, crushing the value out of a democracy
that ten generations of Americans have struggled and died to
preserve.

The platform that follows is directed at the restoration both of our
political liberty and of fiscal and economic solvency for our
children. Unlike the incumbents of both parties, we not only welcome
electoral competition, we cherish it. We not only espouse the virtue
of fiscal conservatism and responsibility, we will actually practice
it with spending and taxes. We not only desire political and
electoral reform, we will support these reforms as the core of our
effort to restore choice and accountability. and, we will support
only those candidates who are committed to the reforms we seek as a
party.

The maintenance of our democracy requires a price of each of us. We
will retain democracy for our children only as much as our own
willingness to sacrifice for it.

The Central Mission

The Independence Party of New York is organized around a core of
values, beliefs and principles, and these are embodied in the
objectives described in this platform. The following elements define
the mission of the party:

To restore democratic choice and electoral accountability.

To put an end to budget deficits, unfunded pension liabilities, and
other underfunded long term liabilities.

To diminish the pervasive and pernicious role of campaign
contributions in buying access to legislative decision making and in
promoting claims to public money.

To promote public policies that are more directly consistent with
the desires and needs of the public:

In welfare, where Americans want a system that discourages
teenage pregnancy, encourages work, and encourages families to stay
together.

In education, where Americans want to promote improvements that
move us toward a world class education system.

In crime, where Americans want a system that keeps violent
felons off the street, and which promotes more creative alternatives to
incarceration for nonviolent criminals.

In taxation and spending, where Americans want solutions that do
not require continually increasing the burden of taxation on
Americans and do not require continually expanding the scope of
government activity.

In area after area of public policy, the state and federal
governments continually produce policies that are badly
unrepresentative of the desires of the American people. This occurs
because the current election system renders incumbents all but
indestructible, making them unresponsive to the public and highly
responsive to the campaign contributions that guarantee their
electoral invulnerability. As a result, Americans are angry,
frustrated, alienated and discouraged at a level that has not been
present in at least 50 years or more.

In effect, our current two party system has proved a monumental
failure in the most essential public function it performs -- the
representation of what Americans want from government.

The Restoration of Democratic Choice and Electoral Accountability

The Current Condition:

Electoral accountability requires democratic choice. By democratic
choice, we mean simply that two or more candidates and parties in an
election district have a relatively equal opportunity and resources
to communicate with the voters for the purpose of securing their
support. By this standard, more than 90 percent of all legislative
districts in the United states lack anything approximating democratic
choice. The reality is that the incumbents of both parties have such
disproportionate resources that reasonable competition is all but
impossible.

The results of this condition are apparent to any but the most
prejudiced observers:

Voters simply do not hear a balance of competing views in most
districts.

Invulnerable incumbents pay less attention to the voters of the
district.

The incumbents pay attention to the interests of the campaign
contributions that guarantee their invulnerability.

Voters who have little influence both over the outcome of elections
and the policies of their government become alienated, frustrated,
and discouraged, and they stop participating as a result.

The elimination of the right and opportunity of democratic choice in
the United States is simply not tolerable. The Democratic and
Republican officeholders are responsible for this condition. They are
the beneficiaries of the abuses which they and their predecessors
created. They promote the propaganda that would blind the public to
the loss of the public's right of democratic choice. They promote the
hypocritical concept that while they clearly are part of the
legislative process creating the abuse, they are without any personal
responsibility for the consequences of this process.

The Solutions of the Independence Party:

The Independence Party is committed to the concept that voters have
an inherent right to a democratic choice in all their elections, and
that the only way to guarantee that right is to insure that
challengers have relatively equal access to resources. Further, the
Party believes that the voters themselves must be empowered to resist
a legislature that has proven unresponsive to the public will. Toward
these ends, we support the following measures.

To Increase the Power of Voters:

1. Initiative, Referendum and Recall: Commitment to Initiative,
Referendum and Recall at the federal, state and local level.

2. Referendum on the State Budget: Commitment to a state-wide
referendum on a two year state budget. (See Fiscal proposals on
budget reform).

3. Voter Nonapproval Proposal: Place a category on the ballot that
allows citizens to vote "None of the Above." If this category wins, a
special election must be held.

4. Citizen Empowerment Plank: Grant legal "standing" to citizens and
citizen groups to bring court challenges for waste, fraud, financial
abuse, and criminal acts at all levels of government. Eliminate
sovereign immunity as a defense against such actions.

5. Unrestricted Party Registration: Commitment to the right of
citizens to register as a member of any party of their choice, at any
time, without prohibition by the state.

Enhance the Potential for Voter Participation:

1. Motor Voter Plank: Automatically register individuals to vote who
have a driver's license, are eighteen (18), and who are otherwise
qualified to vote.

2. Extended Polling Times: Hold elections in a manner so as to allow
voters the opportunity to vote during a period beginning on the
Saturday before the traditional Tuesday date for elections and ending
on election day, and expand the opportunity for absentee voting.

Improve Ballot Access to People or Groups Seeking Office:

1. Uniform Ballot Access Plank: Support the creation of uniform
ballot access for elections for President, the US Senate and the
House of Representatives, easing access for independent or other
party candidates.

2. State-wide Ballot Access: A measure whereby a state-wide ballot
position as a party could be obtained either by running a candidate
for governor who receives 50,000 votes in the general election, or by
registering 50,000 voters under the name of the party state-wide.

3. Local Ballot Access: A measure whereby any political organizing
committee securing the registration of one percent of the registered
voters in any electoral district would have the right to place
candidates on the ballot as a major party in that district as long as
they maintain the one percent registration.

Reduce the Advantages of Incumbency and Grant Challengers
Relatively Equal Ability to Compete for Office:

1. Term limits: Support term limits of no more than twelve (12) years
for a legislative position and eight (8) years for an executive
position.

2. Extension of Terms: Support the extension of Congressional and
state legislative terms to four (4) years (thereby reducing the need
for continuous campaigning and the need for campaign funds).

3. Public Funding of Campaigns: Commitment to public funding of
elections, coupled with the complete elimination of Political Action
Committee (PAC) money for local, state and federal offices.
Candidates accepting public funds cannot accept any funds or services
for the general election from party organizations (the so-called soft
money), and they must accept funding limits for their campaign, with
unused campaign funds returned to the government.

4. Local Funding of Campaigns: Restrict fund raising so that at least
eighty (80) percent of campaign funds for primaries come from within
the area where the candidates live.

5. No Foreign Campaign Contributions: Support for legislation
declaring illegal campaign contributions by foreign governments or
foreign owned corporations or other organizations.

6. Reform of the Franking Laws: (1) Prohibit an incumbent from any
mailings at public expense after August 31st of an election year. (2)
Prohibit any franked mass mailings by incumbents to voters outside of
the district in which the incumbent serves. (3) Extend the franking
privilege to political parties of record whereby these political
parties get mailings equal to the number made by the incumbent during
any election year. (4) Remove the incumbent's name and picture from
any newsletter sent to constituencies using the franking
privilege.

7. Anti-Gerrymandering Plank: Conduct the ten year redistricting
through an independent commission where commission members are
nominated by the Governor and must be confirmed by a two-thirds in
both houses of the legislature. Members must be appointed in the year
prior to the census year. At lease one member must come from each
political party with state-wide ballot status in the state.
Redistricting must be completed before the end of the first year in
which the census is completed. Should any of these provisions not be
met by the legislator and the governor, the power to take action
falls immediately to the Court of Appeals.

8. Uniform Disclosure Plank: Support a proposal requiring the clear
disclosure of any organization soliciting support on behalf of a
candidate, whether in person or by phone.

9. Media Time For Debates: We support in principle the belief that
radio and television, as publicly licensed broadcasters, should be
required to set aside some set number of programming hours to support
debates among the candidates for the various offices.

Improve Dramatically the Ethical Standards and Conduct of
candidates and Office Holders.

1. Party Standards for Candidates: The Independence Party imposes
certain standards on its candidates. These Include: (1) they will
accept no PAC funds; (2) they voluntarily accept term limits on
themselves even before they are enacted into law; (3) they will
strive to avoid negative campaigning, and will strive to conduct
their campaigns in a manner that sticks to issues, educates voters,
and raises the quality of discourse in campaigns; (4) they agree to
participate in debates; (5) they agree to participate in a balanced
and fair process of reviewing complaints against unfair, inaccurate,
and misleading campaign practices on a timely basis.

2. Requirement to Caucus as a Party: Independence Party candidates
agree, when elected, to caucus as members of the Independence
Party.

3. Fair Campaign Practices Commission: The party supports the
creation of local and state commissions to review campaign
complaints.

4. Anti-Gratuity Plank: Independence Party candidates will refuse all
gifts or gratuities from lobbyists or other private interests seeking
services, favors, or legislation from the local, state or federal
government in which they serve.

5. Anti-Revolving Door Plank: Support legislation such that office
holders will not serve as lobbyists with the state or federal
government within three (3) years of the date of termination of their
service from their respective office, and they will not represent,
before the state or federal government, any foreign government or
corporation (or an American subsidiary) for a period of five years
beyond the end of their government service.

Improve Opportunities for Citizen-Legislators:

1. Citizen Legislator Plank: Restructure legislative service to
support the concept that all legislative offices, other than the
House and the US. Senate should be part-time positions that can
easily be held by most citizens.

2. Legislative Salaries: End the policy of granting pensions to
elected legislative positions.

3. Legislative Reform: Make the state budget a two year budget
cutting the legislative year to two months and cutting salaries by 50
percent.

4. Uniform Application of Laws: support legislation that would make
Congress and the state legislature, and the members of both, subject
to the same laws imposed on others, including pension laws,
discrimination laws, etc.

5. Budget Penalty: Reduce the salaries of state legislators and the
Governor by $1,000 for every day the budget is late in delivery.

The battle to restore democratic choice, electoral accountability and
ethical behavior is paramount. Unless these reforms can occur, it is
impossible to institute budget and fiscal reforms because the system
of funding now in place creates overwhelming pressures to increase
government spending.

The most important reform of the Independence Party, however, is the
party's very existence. The Party will contest the seats where one of
the other two parties has decided that the incumbent cannot be
contested. The Party will seek to finance itself from among its own
members, and thereby present the choice of a locally funded candidate
against a candidate beholden to special interests and interests
outside the district. In this manner, the Independence Party will
alter the present stalemate in politics and increase the choices
available to the voter.

The Restoration of Fiscal Solvency And Budgetary Sanity

The Current Condition:

The profligate fiscal behavior of the incumbents of both parties has
reached proportions over the past decade that clearly threaten to
destroy the future for our children and grandchildren. The federal
debt stands in excess of $4.5 Trillion, and it will rise nearly
another Trillion before the end of the 1990's. This does not include
the enormous underfunded liabilities in virtually all of the long
term programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and federal, state and
local pensions. These underfundings occur because state and federal
authorities deliberately understate the financial implications of
long-term obligations by using actuarial tables that are well out of
date. This allows them to avoid paying for these obligations with
current dollars, which might require tax increases, and instead they
transfer the obligations to future generations of tax payers. In New
York State in 1993, the Governor and the leaders of the state
legislature (both Republican and Democrat) increased this
underfunding of pensions by an additional $3 Billion, in order to
produce a temporary balance of the state budget. They were sued by
the Controller and lost, and now the taxpayers must make up this
additional amount.

We cannot recount all of the fiscal and budgetary abuses in this
short document. The abuses are available in more than two dozen books
that have been written about this behavior during the past five years
alone. What we can say is that these abuses are the direct product of
agreements between the leadership of both political parties. At the
federal level, the leaders of the two parties have produced three
massive tax increases in less than a decade, 1986, 1990 and 1993; and
in all three instances they have done little or nothing to control
spending or to alter the forces that are driving spending upward. The
Republicans pretend to believe in fiscal conservatism, but they have
been directly supportive of all but the last agreement. Under the
direct leadership of both parties, the rise in federal spending
continues unabated and untouched by the actions of Congress or the
President.

In New York State the problem is even worse. The Republicans have
controlled the State Senate and the Democrats the Assembly for nearly
three decades. During that time, particularly since 1980, state
spending has risen at an average of two to three times the inflation
index. The continuation of this practice for another ten years will
prove catastrophic for the State. Again, the Republican leadership
pretends to fiscal conservatism, but this spending increase could not
have occurred without their explicit agreement through their control
of the State Senate.

During the whole time, both parties have spent hundreds of millions
of dollars in propaganda to persuade Americans and New Yorkers that
they are fiscally prudent and responsible. The incumbents of both
parties routinely return to their home districts and pretend that
they bear no responsibility for institutions that no longer function
to serve the public will.

The facts are today not even in serious dispute: (1) Spending remains
out of control at the state and federal level; (2) Both major parties
contribute to the problem because of their need to pay off interests
that support their candidates; (3) Both parties contribute to hiding
the problem from the public through the use of phony budgets,
gimmicks such as off-line budgeting, the deliberate understatement of
long-term liabilities, and mandates to transfer the cost either to
other units of government, to the private sector through regulations
and requirements, or to the future.

The time is long since past that a responsible person can believe
that either party will step forward with real solutions to these
problems. These incumbents will not bite the hands that feed money
into their elections through the corruption of the PAC system and the
soft money transfer through the national and state committee of the
two parties.

The Solutions of the Independence Party

We believe that the restoration of democratic choice in elections and
direct electoral accountability are the surest ways to restore fiscal
and budgetary responsibility. However, we also believe that
institutional reforms are required to sweep away the residue of
corruption and incompetence that permeates the budgetary process in
New York and the nation. Budgetary and fiscal policies in the United
States should be guided by a number of principles:

1. Continued
deficit spending and underfunding of obligations are
unacceptable.

2. Federal, state, and local governmental budgets should be subject
to the same accounting principles and processes imposed wisely on
private corporations and organizations.

3. Our policy should call for the reduction of the deficit to zero
before the end of the decade, and it should include a gradual paydown
of all long-term obligations.

4. All long-term obligations must be funded with current dollars,
applying accepted actuarial figures to every public pension program
and other long term obligations under the authority and guidance of
an independent accounting firm.

5. Wherever possible, we prefer to minimize the role of the
government, transferring needed activities into the private sector
through privatization.

6. When a government program transfers income to individuals, we
prefer to minimize the size and scope of administrative and
bureaucratic involvement, making such transfer payments directly
without excessive interference in the lives of recipients.

The first obligation of all obligation of all governments is to prove
that they can provide services with a level of quality that meet the
needs and standards of performance required by the taxpaying public.
So far, governments have fallen terribly short of acceptable quality
in areas where direct comparisons with the private delivery of
similar services is possible. For example, would Americans, where
they have a choice, prefer to get their medical care through the
Veterans Administration Hospitals or go to a private hospital. Would
businesses prefer to trust their packages to the Post Office or to
one of the private carriers?

We believe that the time has arrived for government at all levels to
concentrate more on improving the quality of services they provide
rather than throwing more money at services that are not performing
well. While we as a party do not follow the rather mindless cant of
some Republicans who decry all government; we equally reject the
bureaucratic liberals in the Democratic Party who with similar
mindlessness propose monstrous new program after new program as a
cure for all of our problems, even as they fail to make the existing
programs work. In this light, the solutions of the Independence Party
of New York include the following:

Decrease Federal and State Budget Deficits to Zero In Five Years.

1. Federal Deficit Plank: A five year plan to reduce the federal
deficit to zero that emphasizes exclusively spending cuts since
federal taxes have already been raised twice in 1990 and 1993 with no
real spending cuts.

2. Automatic Cost of Living (COLA) adjustments: An end to the use of
automatic (without legislative vote) cost of living adjustments for
all government programs. (Periodic cost of living adjustments will
obviously be necessary from time to time, but legislatures should be
forced to vote on these increases).

3. National Debt Referendum Plank: Require a national referendum on
the increase of the federal debt level except where approved by a
two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress and signed by the
President.

4. Restraint in Growth of Government Plank: Call for a five year
program of holding the rate of increase in state and federal spending
to at least one percent under the rate of inflation for five
years.

5. Full Funding Plank: Support an end to the deliberate unfunding and
underfunding of long-term liabilities such as government employee
pensions. Require that expenses and obligations be fully paid in the
year in which the obligation occurs.

6. State Deficit Plan: Call for a five year plan to eliminate the
growing state budget deficit, demanding that the budget is current
with all long-term liabilities and obligations.

7. Anti-Mandate Plank: Require an end to all mandates which transfer
revenue obligations to other units of government without the approval
of the other governments or the citizens they represent.

8. Sunset Provisions: Require a five year sunset provision for every
budget item, both at the state and federal level, whereby the program
must be fully reconstituted through the legislative process.

9. Balanced Budget Amendment: Support a constitutional amendment to
provide for a balanced federal budget.

10. Full Taxation of Subsidies: All subsidies and transfer payments
of any kind that go directly to corporations and individuals should
be taxed at the prevailing rate for the corporation or taxpayer.

Improve the Fairness and Quality of The Budgetary Process:

1. Full and Fair accounting Plank: Support the use of generally
recognized accounting standards and procedures to federal, state and
local governments, including: (1) The use of the accrual method of
accounting; (2) The inclusion of a balance sheet with a full
expression of all assets and obligations; (3) The creation of public
audit committees: (4) The requirement of an annual outside audit by
an independent auditing firm: (5) The end to the use of off-line
budgeting: (6) The requirement for independent actuarial evaluations
of all long-term program obligations; (7) The adoption of a single
set of accounting procedures and standards; and (8) Quarterly interim
reports on the budget.

2. Secure Trust Fund Status for Social Security: An end to the
practice of financing current debt by taking excess Social Security
contributions and replacing them with government IOUs.

3. Two Year Budget Cycle: Require that all government budgeting
replace the current one year budgets with two year budgets, requiring
public referenda on these budgets.

4. Citizen Approval of Employment Contracts: Provide public referenda
on all state and local public employment contracts.

5. Taxpayer
Advocacy Plank: Create an independent Taxpayer Budget Office under
the authority of the Controller, whose legislative function is to
prepare the best possible case against every public expenditure and
every increase in public expenditures, and which is required to make
representations before legislative committees on behalf of the
taxpayer.

6. Timely Budgets: Both the state and federal governments should be
required to submit final budgets within timely schedules, with fines
for the legislator if they fail to meet deadlines.

Improve the Quality of Service of the Government:

1. Fair Dismissal Plank: Continue Civil Service requirements for the
hiring and promotion of public employees, but alter the Civil Service
requirements to ease dramatically the restrictions (and exorbitant
cost) of the ability of the government to discharge employees for
cause.

2. Privatization Plank: Support an aggressive program, of privatizing
government functions wherever and whenever possible.

3. Quality Measurement Plank: Require measurement of the quality of
the delivery of all public services by those who use those public
services on at least an annual basis, with full disclosure of the
results.

4. Line Item Veto: Extend the line item veto to the Governor and the
President.

5. Citizen Legislator Plank: Support the concept that all legislative
offices other than Congress and the U.S. Senate should be part-time
positions that can easily be held by most citizens, and we support
the reorganization of the legislative sessions in New York toward
that end.

6. Uniform Application of Laws Plank: Support a measure requiring
that members of Congress and the state legislatures be subject to the
same laws that are applicable to others, including laws about
discrimination, pension reform and the like.

The deficit and spending crises in this country cannot be addressed
unless a third force is inserted in the legislatures to force the two
parties to end the destructive stalemates over taxation and spending.
The Independence Party intends to create that force by electing
enough legislators to deny either party the ability to organize the
legislature without our votes. The members of the party will vote for
fiscal responsibility, reform of the budgetary process, and the
permanent elimination of deficit financing.

Strengthen the Family Structure

The Current Condition: Welfare

The deterioration of the family in American life is the product of
many forces, some of which are outside of the ability of the
government to control. However, government policy, itself, should not
be one of the primary forces that undermines the preservation and
maintenance of healthy families. The problem, of course, is that
government policy, especially the welfare system in all of its
dimensions, is one of the primary agents behind the deterioration of
families in the inner cities across the United States.

The current welfare system is the creation of both the Republican and
Democratic parties, and both parties have been loath to reform this
area of policy, despite the near uniform agreement that the welfare
system, as designed: (1) encourages the creation of a dependent class
of citizens, wards of the state for multiple generations, (2)
encourages fathers to leave their families because it is more
economically profitable for the family if they do, (3) encourages
teenagers to have children out of wedlock because the state enables
these children to leave home when the baby is born, (4) and fosters
the growth of values formed by peer groups rather than parents,
fostering violence, disruption, and mayhem destroying the security
and safety of family members and neighbors.

Moreover, the current welfare system has produced a huge bureaucracy
that absorbs a disproportionate share of financial resources,
estimated at 68 cents out of the dollar. The amount of money
currently spent on the various welfare programs would completely
eliminate poverty if the money was simply given to the poor.

The Independence Party has no ability at this time to rewrite all of
the very specific provisions of the laws that govern the welfare
system broadly defined. At the same time, we believe that voters have
a right to understand the principles that would guide such an
overhaul of the welfare system, if the Independence Party were
responsible for the system.

Further, we believe that the educational system is the greatest
agency for creating equality of opportunity in the United States, and
the enhancement of the educational system in that role is a key
factor in strengthening the prosperity and future for our children.

Completely Overhaul the Welfare System.

The Values promoted by the current welfare system are incompatible
with the larger goal of strengthening the family. We believe that the
welfare system must be completely overhauled to promote the following
values.

1. Work and Not Dependency: To require and encourage "work" and not
"inactivity" on the part of income recipients, ending permanent
"welfare dependency" except for the seriously impaired and
disabled.

2. Keeping Families Together: To encourage, rather than discourage,
fathers to stay with their families, assuming in the process
financial responsibility for their children.

3. End Teenage Pregnancy: To discourage teenage pregnancy, and to
discourage the current practice of children trying to raise children
of their own.

4. Tame the Welfare Bureaucracy: To reduce the size, scope and power
of the welfare bureaucracy, providing the money for reform out of the
exorbitant overhead costs of the current welfare system.

5. Parental Support: Take steps to insure that both biological
parents contribute to the support of children by strengthening the
state and federal government's ability to assist in enforcing
children support orders and child support agreed upon by the
parents.

6. IRS Cooperation: Remove barriers to permitting the IRS to divulge
the whereabouts of non paying parents to appropriate state and
federal agencies.

7. Residency Requirements: One year residency requirement in New York
State before one can receive welfare assistance.

8. Illegal Aliens: No welfare assistance to people who are illegal
aliens.

9. Federal Waivers: Request federal legislative waivers so that New
York can change its welfare system without explicit federal approval.
The Independence Party clearly rejects the approaches of both the
Democratic and the Republican Parties on the issue of welfare. The
Democrats insist on reforms that leave the entire welfare bureaucracy
intact, perpetuating the agency most responsible for resisting
changes that would reduce its power. The Republicans, by contrast,
promote solutions that are largely propaganda, knowing full well that
they will never be responsible for implementing their positions in
most areas of the country. The Independence Party acknowledges the
continuing need for a safety net to protect citizens, but we believe
that the system needs a complete overhaul.

The Current Condition: Education

The American educational system is the single most important force
for upward mobility and economic prosperity in the United States. The
improvement of the current system of education is a central objective
of the Independence Party. Toward that overall mission, the Party has
several specific objectives.

To Improve Productivity in Education in the United States and New
York State.

2. National Science Act for Americans: Create and fund a national
science and technology act that will create educational funds for
American citizens who study in the sciences, engineering, and
mathematics fields.

3. National Prize Program: Create a national prize program for the
development of computer based educational tools and materials for the
schools.

4. Schools as Community Centers: Provide funding to keep schools open
on evenings, during weekends, and in the summers as community centers
for our youth.

5. Extension of Education: Extend the school year and the school day.

Increase the Choices Available to Parents and Their Children for
Their Education:

1. Enhanced Choice: Provide funding for children who wish to seek
education outside of the district in which they reside.

2. Enhance Competition: Allow parents to use public funding to send
their children to qualified private schools.

3. Early Education: Increase state and federal support for early
education, particularly for children who come from the impoverished
backgrounds.

Make the Restoration of Order, Discipline, and Safety in the
Classroom a High Priority, Even at the Expense of Isolating Students
Who are Disruptive in the School.

2. Weapon Suspension: Immediately suspend students who bring guns or
knives to school.

3. Bureaucratic Reduction: Reduce central bureaucratic control,
including state control, over individual districts and individual
schools; thereby reducing the ability of large scale state and local
interests to dictate school policies.

The educational system in New York State is filled with fine people
who want nothing more than to make the system work more efficiently
and more effectively for our children. These people are hampered by
model of education where large scale bureaucratic control is exerted
downward from the state, creating rigidity and inflexibility
throughout the system. We believe that the children in the State
would be much better off if parents had more influence and
bureaucrats less influence in determining the education that our
children receive. Continuous improvement should be the guiding light
of education, but improvements determined by the needs of families,
children and parents, and not the needs of the other interests in
education. Education primarily exists to serve the needs and
interests of the consumers, and not the needs and interests of the
providers. The current organization of education in the State
reverses this priority.

The Problem of Crime

The Current Condition:

Crime is a central issue threatening the family in New York State.
The statistics on the rising wave of violent crime appall those who
remember a time when our communities were relatively safe from
violence. Neither the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party are
in favor of crime, and neither the Republicans nor the Democrats want
to be perceived as soft on crime. If either of the two parties had a
"magic bullet" that would cure this problem, we would have heard
about it long ago. The reality is that neither party has proposed
anything that approaches a solution to this problem, and both parties
and their candidates are periodically guilty of absurd propaganda
against the other in the pursuit of electoral advantage on this
issue.

Principles of the Independence Party

The Independence Party has not yet developed a full blown set of
positions on the issue of crime, but we can enunciate some principles
that will guide the development of these proposals over the next few
months:

Try as much as possible to keep non-violent criminals out of
prison, using various forms of rigorous public service as an
alternative to incarceration.

Reduce the ability of parole boards to release criminals who
committed or threatened violence in the commission of their
crimes.

Develop options for dealing with excessively unruly and disruptive
youth that takes them out of the school system where they injure the
educational possibilities for other children.

Sharply increase the penalties for the use of a weapon in the
commission of a crime.

Use taxes on cigarettes and alcohol to support efforts aimed at
preventing children from using any drug, including cigarettes and
alcohol.

Put more police services into communities, close to the people they
protect.

Increase the number of police personnel who are recruited from
among the racial and ethnic minorities.

Regardless of any opportunity to do so, the Independence Party will
not practice the kind of cruel propaganda practiced so frequently by
the other parties on the issue of crime. We will not offer "magic
solutions" that might win votes, but would not improve the
conditions. We will not accuse the other parties of "softness on
crime."

Every reasonable person in this State wishes crime could be reduced.
The way to reduce crime is to make it less of a partisan issue and
more of a community issue.

The So-Called "Social Issues"

There are a number of issues promoted by the existing parties which
we in the Independence Party believe have no place as party issues.
These issues are largely a matter of one's own personal ethical or
moral standards, and we believe that candidates should be permitted
to state their positions on these issues without the party attempting
to dictate the position for the individual. Moreover, we further
believe that efforts by outside groups to dictate policies for the
parties on these issues have proven extremely destructive to the
overall political process by diverting attention away from the
deterioration of our democracy and the impending financial
catastrophe facing our children.

For these reasons, the Independence Party will take no formal
position on the issue of abortion, the death penalty, or school
prayer.

On the whole, as well, the party takes no position on questions
pertaining to one's sexual preference. However, the Independence
Party stands steadfastly opposed to discrimination, prejudice and
racism in their myriad of forms, and we do not believe that anyone
should be discriminated against on the basis of his or her sexual
preference.

Other Issues

The Independence Party is in the process of considering other issues
of consequence, and the Party will issue position statements from
time to time when a consensus is reached within the party on an
issue. However, this should not obscure the fact that the
Independence Party has a very specific program of political and
fiscal reform that constitutes the top agenda of the party. Unlike
the other parties, we have a core set of issues that form the basis
for our very existence, and we are recruiting both candidates and
supporters primarily around this core. We believe that unless we
restore political and fiscal integrity to our politics that the other
issues won't matter very much. Moreover, the outcomes of these others
issues will - without substantial reform - be dictated by the very
same large interests that currently distort all of our priorities,
using power they gain through their ability to support incumbents in
the electoral process. If you agree with our views, we urge you to
join the Independence Party, making your own contribution to the
restoration of our democracy and our children's financial future.

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